iriver
| iriver Ltd.
|
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Limited |
| founding | January 1999 |
| Seat | Seoul |
| management | James Lee |
| sales | $ 83.883 million (2004) |
| Website | www.iriver.com |
The international company iriver Ltd. (Former full name: iriver Co., Limited ; until 2004 with the spelling iRiver ; today also IRIVER ) is a manufacturer of MP3 players , mobile video players and e-book readers . It was founded in 1999 as a subsidiary of ReignCom Ltd. and is based in Seoul . Before the sale to SK Telecom, the company had 233 employees. The company has been listed on the Korean technology exchange KOSDAQ since 2003 .
history
ReignCom was founded in 1999 by seven former Samsung executives . ReignCom originally marketed semiconductors , but then focused on developing MP3 players. Production was relocated to China and product design was taken over by the Californian company INNO Design , only research and development was still based in South Korea.
Their first iriver product was the iMP-100 portable CD player with MP3 support, released in November 2000 . The models iMP-100 and iMP-200 were marketed in the United States by SonicBlue under the name Rio Volt . Later models were sold by the in-house brand SlimX as "the thinnest MP3 CD player in the world".
In 2002 iriver started developing MP3 players with flash memory . A year later, they sold their first models with 512 MB and 1 GB of flash memory and became a stock corporation listed in KOSDAQ . Hard disk players were also offered to compete with iPods . This made Iriver one of the leaders in MP3 player sales for a short time.
In May 2006, ReignCom announced that it would focus on the handheld console market and that its MP3 player sales were declining.
Prior to the sale, iriver had offices in the US, Brazil, Hong Kong and Japan. In Europe, iriver was represented from 2004 until the closure by iriver Europe GmbH based in Eschborn . The South Korean private equity firm Vogo Fund held a significant stake in iriver from 2007 to 2014, as the company has lost a lot of sales since 2009 due to the decline of MP3 players.
In 2013 iriver founded the subsidiary Astell & Kern . The name is derived from the Latin synonym Astell ( stars ) and the German word kern .
In 2014 iriver was sold to SK Telecom . Today there are only branch offices in Guangdong and Irvine , the distribution of the products was taken over by country-specific service providers.
Products
The product lines include portable MP3 and video players with flash or hard disk storage. Furthermore, CD players and an e-book reader with MP3 support were offered. Most of them were viewed positively by the trade press, and for a long time the e-reader Story HD offered the highest resolution on the market. Most of the company's MP3 players are supported on the Rockbox open source operating system.
Portable media player
The newer devices from iriver are particularly characterized by the integrated recording function, with which audio signals from the built-in microphone , the line input or, if available, the integrated radio tuner can be recorded in MP3 format. The current models can play all MP3 and Windows Media Audio files. Some models can also play the Ogg Vorbis format and view text, image and / or Adobe Flash files. The video playback devices support Windows Media Video and the MPEG-4 format. Furthermore, the current devices have a DRM support that can be deactivated by the user , with which certain music files purchased from the Internet can be played.
selection
- H10 with 5GB or 6GB hard disk, from 2004
- Clix GEN2 was developed and marketed together with Microsoft in 2009 .
- W10 should have WiFi and Internet telephony as well as a navigation system.
E-book reader
In September 2009 iriver released the first e-book reader of its product line, the model called Story works with the help of e-ink technology and supports not only the e-book formats .epub and .pdf but also comics in .jpg or .zip format and music files as .mp3 and .wma. iriver entered into several partnerships with international bookstore chains (Kyobo Books in South Korea, Waterstone’s and WHSmith in Great Britain); in Germany a cooperation with the Hugendubel company was concluded. The successor model, iriver Story HD (2011), with its 6 "E-ink display manufactured by LG, offered a resolution of 768 × 1024 pixels at 213 dpi. However, due to lack of success, sales were discontinued.
Web links
- Official website (English)
- Official website of Astell & Kern (English)
References
- ↑ iriver Global - Overview , accessed on February 27, 2017
- ↑ a b iriver takes off: global sales increase by 83% - marketing investments are paying off , accessed on February 27, 2017.
- ↑ Korea's ReignCom: Moving Up The MP3 Charts . Retrieved May 13, 2007.
- ↑ iriver returns to the M&A market after 5 years | PE Korea . Privateequitykorea.com, accessed February 27, 2017
- ↑ [1] , accessed on February 26, 2017
- ↑ Official website (accessed January 18, 2020)
- ↑ SKT Acquires iriver , accessed February 27, 2017
- ↑ Annual Report SK Telekom 2014 p. 20
- ↑ Iriver Global - Where to buy (as of January 2020)
- ^ The Seattle Times - Is Microsoft taking aim at the iPod? (engl.)
- ↑ Heise.de - 3GSM: iriver shows portable media player with WLAN
- ↑ https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/E-Book-Reader-mit-Tastatur-von-iriver-754913.html
- ↑ http://www.boersenblatt.net/sixcms/detail.php?id=337776
- ↑ Achim Barczok: Easy Tome. In: heise.de. heise mobil, March 15, 2012, accessed on October 14, 2012 .
- ↑ http://allesebook.de/ebook-reader/iriver/iriver-story-hd/